Melyssa Griffin
Welcome back to limitless life. So today we’re talking about burnout. Yeah, burnout. If you know anything about my story, then you know that burnout was a pretty significant turning point in my life as an entrepreneur and really, as a human. I went through this period of burnout about two years ago now, where I took six months off from my company, because I was that burned out, I was so burnt out that I couldn’t physically work up the energy to continue working in my company. And that had been building for quite some time. I was feeling burnt out for a year or maybe even two years before I took that sabbatical, and it was just escalating and escalating until I started to have physical manifestations of burnout like adrenal fatigue, exhaustion, apathy, depression, all of the things that you think of when you think of burnout. So this topic is really exciting.

To me, and it’s something that I hear so often from people that I work with clients, students, people in my community who I support, there’s this almost sense that you need to hustle your way to the top, that grinding and grit and just working super long hours. It’s how you gain success. And I think it’s a really toxic way of working and creating things. I certainly think that hard work has its place and is obviously an important component of creating anything. But there’s a line that gets to be drawn, where we start to enter the world and realm of burnout as opposed to simply hard work. And so I want to talk about what that means. What’s the difference? How do you know you’re burning out? What does it actually feel and look like? And then how do we actually go through a process so that you can start to understand your and move through it and actually bounce back from being burnt out.

Because I’ve talked to a lot of people who don’t know how to handle this process. And so they’ll be burned out for years with no direction. And they won’t really bounce back very quickly because they don’t have tools to understand why they’re burnt out in the first place. And so they don’t make the necessary changes that would actually have supported them a lot sooner. So I’m hoping that with this episode, if you’re feeling burnt out, you’re feeling exhausted, you’re feeling like you don’t have that direction that maybe you used to have or the passion you used to have. By the end of this episode, you will feel like you are on track, like you know, what you get to do in order to come back to yourself. So what is burnout? What does it feel like? How is it different from something working hard? So my definition of burnout is that it’s not just about hustling And working long hours and trying to do too much. When we think of burnout, we usually equate it to that as an effect of that, that we’re just doing too much. And so we burnt out, I actually believe that burnout is more of a result of doing too much in the wrong direction. And that’s really the distinction where you could be working hard in the right direction, the Aligned direction. We’ll talk about what alignment means in a moment. But you could be working really hard in the direction that matters to you that matters to your soul, and not burn out. Because it’s different. It’s different when you’re continuously working on things in a direction that has expired for you in some capacity. direction that no longer lights you up but direction that is not your direction anymore, but that in some way you’re forcing, because you might be afraid to pivot or let go or make some brave changes in your business. Or in your life in general, you can burn out in a lot of different areas, not just in your company. So that’s how I define burnout versus hard work. Or burnout is really about moving in a direction that is not aligned for you, but continuing to push in that direction anyways. And so what it feels like his both his existential crisis where you can feel somewhere inside of you that you’re not moving in a direction that is aligned with your soul anymore, that there’s that purpose, that mission that feels like it’s being lost, that you feel like, you don’t know what direction you want to be going in, or at least the one that you’re in right now is not fulfilling you in the way that maybe it used to. Because that’s part of it too is that direction could have been aligned for you. You could have been passionate about it previously, and things have changed and that’s okay too.

Sometimes, we click So much to the way things were. And we want to exist on the same path for our entire lives. But I think we live many lives in many directions. So it’s really, how much resistance Are you going to put up to change and allowing change? Because that will bring you burnout to if you put up a lot of resistance to change and things that need to change in your life. So how it feels is that existential crisis of feeling like you’ve lost your purpose, where do they go? How do I get back, and then also, the physical manifestations of burnout are pretty obvious to so you’ll often feel quite tired or exhausted and there’s a spectrum here too, of where you might end up. But you could develop things like adrenal fatigue or thyroid issues. You might feel depressed or have more anxiety. You might feel really stressed out all of the time. And I felt, by the way, all of these things so I completely understand And that was my experience as well. And just speaking from personal experience, it made it really hard to get anything done. Because I was both battling these physical ailments of just not being able to really focus or do anything. So I was tired and, and depressed, but also the existential component of even when I did have energy to do something, I didn’t want to do it because it just didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel aligned anymore. And so if you’re feeling burnt out, then it might be a combo of both of these things. And again, it’s a spectrum too. So maybe you’re more severe than that. I had friends who have been so debilitated from their burnout that they had to go to the hospital. And then there are other people who can catch it sooner and it hasn’t built into quite such a spectacle by that point. But depending on where you are, it will feel a little something like that. So it’ll feel like the exhaustion the existential questioning all Have those things. And so if you’re feeling that way, right now, the process that I want to move you through is three prong. And I like to think of it as the triple A process because it starts with awareness. Then we move into alignment, and then we move into action. So let me walk you through each of those steps on how you can bounce back after experiencing burnout or if you’re experiencing right now. So the first step is awareness, awareness, gaining a deep sense of awareness about why you chose this, because you did. You chose it. You chose the circumstances that are creating the burnout in your life in some way.

And so why did you choose it because if we just try to go straight to action, we just go straight to figuring out what might help you recover from burnout and we don’t take stock of what created it in the first Place, which is what a lot of people do they go straight to the solution without actually uncovering why the problem started, then you’re going to recreate the problem later on, it’s going to show up in another area of your life, you’re going to feel burnt out again a year from now. So you need to develop the awareness of why you created these circumstances why you chose this, so that we can move to step two, which is alignment and actually rewiring those choices so that they’re aligned for next time and for your future moving forward. So I would journal about this, I would talk to a trusted friend or partner about it. You could even talk to your pet or your dog just process why you chose this some way. Get it out on paper or verbally. Why did you choose the circumstances that have led to your burnout? And so as you’re thinking about these circumstances, I want you to remember that burnout doesn’t simply come from working too hard. Working too much working long hours or not even just work by doing too much in your life, it doesn’t come just from doing too much. There always has to be that component of doing too much in the wrong direction, doing too much by walking down a path that has expired. So I want you to think about it from that angle.

When you’re thinking about why did I choose this? Why do I keep choosing this? Why am I doing so much in a direction that doesn’t fulfill me anymore? That needs to pivot, where I don’t feel supported, where I feel like I’m giving all of myself and not getting anything in return. So what areas of your life would be affected if you started asking yourself those questions? Because your burnout may not just exist inside of your business, it may also exist in your relationship with your partner your relationship to being a parent, if you have kids, it could exist in your family relationships with your parents or siblings. Maybe it exists in an organization you volunteer with, or some hobby that you have. So your burnout can exist in all of these different areas of your life. And you get to ask yourself, why did I choose these circumstances that created this feeling? And how long have you felt that way? And why now? Why have you not made any changes until this moment? What led you to this episode? Why is now the time that you’ve decided you’re going to make some really serious changes in your life, that you’re ready to recover from being burnt out that you want to bounce back? Why now, especially if you’ve been feeling this way for a long time, and if you have been feeling this way for a long time, what has prevented you from Making changes before? Because I would wager that this is probably not the first time you’ve learned about burnout, well looked it up, tried to make some changes. So what’s actually stopped you from doing that? Was it because the changes that you would have to make more too big, because you’d have to give something up, let something go.

And what might happen if you had to do that. So really just developing awareness of where burnout is affecting your life and why you chose it. Because there’s always going to be a benefit to why we choose the things that we do, even when those things might be toxic, even when those things might be a detriment to our lives in a lot of ways. So for example, I continued to choose my own burnout. for about two years before I ended up taking my six month sabbatical from my company. And I continued to choose my burnout. I continue to pile up things on to my schedule, I continued to overwork myself and direction no longer lit me up. Because I felt like if I stopped, it was almost like it was on a treadmill, I stopped, and the treadmill didn’t stop. And I would fly off this thing. And I would never recover, that my business would crumble. If I took a step back, that if I tried to shift or pivot, the direction that I’m going in, if I started teaching on different topics, or selling different types of programs, than everyone who is part of my community, now all of the students and clients and everything that I’ve built will disappear. That was the story I was telling myself. And if I pulled the thread a little more and kept going back and asking myself Well, why is that the story? And I want you to do this to ask yourself as you start to develop awareness. Where does that story come from? Why do I actually believe that? So I started pulling The thread and asking myself why am I afraid that my entire business would crumble? If I took some time for myself? Why am I afraid that if I pivoted to a different topic that everything would fall apart, I lose my entire community, everything that I’ve worked so hard to create. And as I kept pulling the thread and going back, I know that in my story, I grew up on welfare. I grew up poor. And so I grew up with this mentality that you got to fight for what you get. And you had to fight to keep it. Because there was abandonment and loss in my life too. And so it felt like, if I take a step back, and I honor my needs, then I’m going to lose everything that I worked for. So is this scarcity mentality, that we’re sitting there that I hadn’t learned as a kid, but it was still influencing the decisions that I make today. And I mean, if you go up to any five year old Would you want them to be running your company? Do you want them to be making some of your major life decisions, and no disrespect to five year olds, I think they are probably the true visionaries of our time, in a lot of ways, just living from such an authentic place. But that’s what we’re doing when we make these decisions in our lives, to do something, or change something or keep something the same when it’s operating from that inner child place of fear and scarcity, as those are fears and things that we learned when we were children, and we’re still allowing them to influence us to stay and so that’s what I was doing. I was just so afraid. That would all disappear because I had that story that I learned as a kid of scarcity, of being poor and of never wanting to go back to that place. So as I develop the awareness of where it came from, why I was forcing myself to work to the point of exhaustion In, then I was able to really see my decisions for what they were, and start to make some aligned choices. So as you’re doing this, remember asking yourself, why am I choosing this? Why am I choosing to work so damn hard? Why am I choosing to stay in this relationship that I have a hunch is not fulfilling me? Why am I choosing to continue selling these programs that I don’t feel excited about anymore? Why do I continue to choose all of these things that are not aligned with who I am today, and then pulling the thread and digging deep into yourself to figure out where that story even came from. And then the next step is alignment. And alignment to me To put it simply is really just about following your truth. That’s it. I think it’s a pretty fancy word, but that’s all it means. It’s just being willing to move in the direction of your truth.

Melyssa
And it sounds simple. But moving in the direction of your truth can be the most confronting thing that you ever do in your life. Because following your truth might mean that you gotta shake some shit up. Wow, say that five times fast. You got to really make some major changes. You’ve got to let go of some relationships, some friendships, you’ve got to make a big change in your business. You have to change the way that you parent, right? There’s a lot of things that you might end up feeling like if I was actually following my truth, then I’d be living in a totally different way. And those are all just examples. By the way, you may not have to change the way you parent or even change anything about your business. Your burnout is yours. It’s gonna look different from what it looks like for somebody else because it’s about you honoring your truth which is going to be different from somebody else’s truth, who also would Experience burnout. So it’s really about thinking, which paths Am I continuing to walk down that have expired in my life that have expired in my heart and my soul, in my passion in my alignment and a limitless listener. We’ll get back to the show in just a moment. But I wanted to take 20 seconds to invite you to the free at home digital retreat that I created just for you. It’s called limitless entrepreneur and it’s all about helping you to create an abundant, fearless mindset, all growing your online business. You want to join just visit limitless entrepreneur retreat.com to register. It’s totally free. That’s limitless entrepreneur retreat.com. All right, friend back to the show.

Melyssa Griffin
And then deciding what does lineman actually look like for me? What would it look like if this relationship part of my life was Fully in alignment? What would it look like if my business part of my life was fully in alignment? and alignment doesn’t really think about results, right? So if you’re thinking about, well, my relationship part of my life would be in alignment if I was married and happy and had the perfect partner. That’s not really alignment. Actually. That is an expectation. alignment is like we’ve talked about living in your truth. And so maybe your truth is that you stop hanging out with people who don’t appreciate you in relationships, even if it means letting go of people that you really care about. Maybe alignment means that you work on yourself for a period of time that you quote, date yourself, instead of trying to build the perfect relationship. Maybe for your business alignment means that you shift one of your programs that you sell. You change the topic, you change the format, you change your business entirely. But it doesn’t have to mean that alignment is you’re suddenly making seven figures. And that’s what it is. That’s an expectation like we’ve talked about. So thinking more about how does it feel? How is this aligned with the truth of who I am as a person, that’s when you know that you’ve really started to identify what alignment is in your life. Because if you know how you want to feel, if you know how you want to experience your life beyond the results that you want to achieve, that’s what alignment feels like. And so I want you to think about that for all these areas that burnout has touched your life, where can I identify and define what it would mean? What does it look like for this part of my life to be enlightenment, and then just see what’s missing? What gets to change? What would be different about it that you can then take action on in the next step that we’re going to talk about. Now, this step, this alignment stage, step two here, it could be quite confronting. I mean, this whole process is pretty confronting. But I think this stage, especially because it’s forcing you to both identify what your truth is, and then actually freakin live it. And the reason that we have so much resistance to living our truth in life, is because it often requires us to give up something. And sometimes that’s something that we need to give up to live in alignment with our truth is not something that we want to give up. It might mean that we need to create a boundary with somebody in our life, it might mean that we need to give up relationship, a friendship, a business idea, something that used to light us up and doesn’t anymore. And that can be pretty scary, especially if your identity is wrapped up. And the thing that you need to change pivot or just Release entirely from your life. So as you’re moving through this, know that if you’re feeling any sense of loss or fear, or grief, those are very normal parts of the process. I recommend everybody that having some sort of self connection habit in your life is a really wonderful way to just return to yourself to process through things like loss and fear and scarcity and pain. So for me, that’s journaling. I journal almost every day, if not multiple times a day when I especially need to release something. And it just is a wonderful way for me to be able to get my emotions out of me instead of harboring them inside of me so that they can fester and build, I’m able to let them out and then feel very clear after I do that, and really come back to myself versus living in my ego or my pain or my fear. And so for you, maybe it’s journaling, I think journaling is wonderful. It could also be voice memos. So maybe you prefer talking instead of writing, pull out the voice memo app on your phone and just start recording. Nobody has to listen. You can just record it. Or you could talk to a pet or something, I don’t care, I’m not going to tell anybody. You should see the full on conversations I have with my dog, about anything and everything. So I think that’s a wonderful solution to but anything that you can do to get these emotions out. So as you’re moving through this, and if you’re listening and you’re already feeling burnt out, then it might feel pretty confronting to feel like you have to now take action on something you have to deal with loss or fear or making a big decision in your life. And for somebody who’s already burnt out that’s like Hello, a lot of a lot of stuff to process and deal with. So just figuring out what those emotions underneath are allowing yourself to feel them and process them in whatever way feels right to you. You and knowing that it’s normal.

Knowing that burnout in a lot of ways, as painful as it can be, as confronting as it can be, is such a freaking gift. Because it’s your body and minds way of saying, hey, something isn’t working. And we’d just like to draw your attention to this. We would just like to let you know that something you’re doing isn’t working for us anymore. And so it gives you this chance to really identify what’s not working, that maybe you have ignored, but that your soul is not willing to ignore anymore. So in a lot of ways, it’s a gift.

And if you embody it as a gift, you embrace it, then you really get the opportunity to move through this as probably a turning point in your life. I know my burnout was a massive turning point for me, where I feel like I just had Just be like several years happened in the span of a few months, uh, you know, those, those months in your life where you just feel like so much happens, and for the best reasons and you just feel like you’ve grown so much. And that’s what I want for you too if you’re feeling burnout, because I think it is an opportunity to really come out the other side as as a new and more aligned version of yourself, which is such a blessing. So we move through the alignment stage, which can be quite confronting, we’ve talked about self connection practices to help you process through your emotions as you move through this stage. And now let’s talk about our last step here, which is to take action on everything that we’ve talked about so far. So we’ve moved through building awareness, and then going to alignment and now taking action because we don’t want to go from awareness to action. I will just say that first because if you have awareness of why you’ve chosen burnout, why it exists. in your life, and then you take action from that place without considering what alignment looks and feels like for you What truth looks and feels like for you, then you will take action in a direction that is not aligned. Because you just don’t know, you just don’t know what alignment feels like. So you get to decide what it feels like what it alignment looks like for you without comparing because it’s very individual. And then we take action. So now is the time where you get to actually create an action plan or take one small step in the direction of your alignment, deciding what changes need to happen, and then actually making those changes. And something for me when I was going through my own bout of burnout was that I really wanted to start teaching people and coaching people about mindset and personal development. I just saw how pivotal those topics were in my own life and how they helped me grow my business and helped me be a better friend and partner and human and just transformed my life. And so I resisted for a long time talking about those things with my clients and students because I built this great business talking about business strategy and marketing and funnels and online courses. And so I was afraid that if I infused my work with these other topics about mindset, that people would leave, and it wouldn’t be good anymore. And I was talking to one of my coaches and telling him that I really wanted to create a course that was more centered around mindset. And then I was afraid. I didn’t know what steps to take. I didn’t know what to do, you know? And he said, Well, what’s the, what’s the smallest thing you could do? What could you do that would feel good, and you could just try it. You could just experiment, which is so funny because it’s the same kind of advice that I give to my clients and students all the time. Sometimes we get to take our own advice and we forget. So I did that. And I put together a course. And he helped me to see that. If the course works fantastic, if it doesn’t, you tried, who cares experiment? Why not. And I put together this course. And it really helped to realign myself. And it really just, it made everything seems so much more simple, more easy, I realized that the anxiety I was putting on myself was so much heavier than the actual act of pivoting. And from there, everything just felt a lot easier. So for you considering that to that any of these changes that you might be wanting to make in your life or in your business that would realign you and help you recover from the burnout you’re experiencing. Maybe they’re easier than you think. Maybe they could be smaller than you think. Maybe you think that you have to make these gargantuan changes in your life, but what’s the smallest thing you could do? How does that feel? I think if you just try the smallest thing and you put it out there, then something inside of you shifts, it changes. And then it becomes easier the next time you do it, and the next time and so it’s really just about starting to move in the direction of alignment. You don’t have to fully realize all of these goals and dreams that you have. It’s it’s just about experimenting and putting something out there, but in this new direction, walking down this path that feels vibrant to you. So that’s number one. Number two, in terms of taking action to bounce back from burnout,

is rest. Rest. I think rest is so undervalued in our society, especially in our society. In the United States that is capitalistic, and values, output and hustle and whoever works the hardest, gets the most, and so were instilled on a societal level. With this mentality that arrest is lazy, that the people who get the results are the ones that work the hardest. And I actually think rest is revolutionary. I find my best ideas, my most peaceful state, my most motivated state, my most creative state, when I am doing nothing, when I’m in silence when I’m just observing the world, really just kind of a meditative or mindful state. When I’m not on my phone, when I’m not watching Netflix, I’m not talking about that kind of unpacking about pure rest and silence and spaciousness when you were literally just doing nothing, going for a walk, not listening to music, right? And so, actually, believing that rest is actionable instead of thinking of it as like a nice to have, or even worse, that it’s lazy or that you’re bad for resting. So I would recommend if that feels kind of itchy to you, thinking about rest as being productive and actionable. Do some journaling on it or some sort of processing, where you can actually look for some evidence of how is rest productive? How is rest revolutionary? How might wrestling benefit you, especially if you’re feeling burnt out? how might it bring you back to yourself? And on the flip side, how does hustling, disconnect you from yourself? How does it require that you abandon pieces of who you are, and how could rest bring you back to self connection? So that’s rest. I think it’s a huge part of it, especially if you’re feeling the physical manifestations of burnout, the exhaustion, apathy, the adrenal fatigue thyroid stuff, cortisol, all of those things, rest is crucial. And if you are feeling some physical aspects of burnout, then I do recommend getting something like a blood test. I worked with a naturopath who helped me to take some blood tests and see where I was deficient. Because we could guess what I needed, we could move me in the right direction of alignment. But if you’ve gotten to the point where your body is starting to respond, and your body’s starting to say, no more, then you might need more than just realigning your path. And so I saw a naturopath took some blood tests, and he gave me a whole course of what I needed to deal with supplements, exercise, the types of food that I was eating a lot of different things and it really helped me a lot. One of the things that helped me a lot actually was getting off hormonal birth control. I had been taking it for years, years and years and I think it only then started to attack my body because I was in this really burnt out stage for other reasons, too. It’s kind of like everything just came together all at once. But I definitely believe that the birth control I was taking was wreaking havoc on my body. And the more research that I started to do and talking more to my natural path, and he pointed me in the direction of a lot of articles and websites, I discovered that hormonal birth control is actually can be very detrimental to a woman’s body and it makes sense. It makes sense. It’s like you go to the grocery store. And nowadays if you are a meat eater, you look for meat that’s not infused with hormones, right? You look for meat that says hormone free. I don’t know if it’s a requirement in some states, but you see it on all the packaging because you don’t eat meat that has artificial hormones put into it and yet for women. For those of us that take hormonal birth control, we do exactly that. And I don’t mean this at all to shame any women. I know some women take hormonal birth control for other reasons too. And so I, I do want to be sensitive to that fact. But I also based on the research that I did and my own personal experience with it just

Unknown Speaker
found that

Melyssa Griffin
putting artificial hormones into my body was not healthy and mess with a lot of the natural cycles that my body was meant to do. So with my hormones, which are hormones are like the deciding factor on how you feel your hormones, I’ve come to discover our kind of your personality, they’re kind of who you are. And so to think that we can consume artificial hormones and think that we’ll be totally fine and normal just doesn’t really make sense to me anymore. So make your own choice on that but I’m just putting it out there as a little touch point for you so that you can do some of your own research if you are taking hormonal birth control And especially if you’re not feeling great on it, you’ve got some symptoms or something and you’re feeling burnt out or exhausted or anything, then I would just start doing some research, see if it aligns with you, and talk to a naturopath or doctor. Now, the last thing that I want to say here, in terms of taking action is to reevaluate your expectations and goals. Because sometimes we will set goals for ourselves, because, well, that’s kind of the thing we don’t know. We don’t know why we set the goals we set when we say we want to earn six figures or seven figures in our companies. We say we want to get married by the time we’re a certain age or we want to have two kids. And we want to live in a certain neighborhood and we make all these goals for ourselves. We sell these expectations for our lives. And we don’t even know why. I don’t even know why we’re putting all this pressure on ourselves to achieve these things. And a lot of it is because of our conditioning because a society or your family or the people who are around you, the people that you follow even can influence you in the expectations that you create for your life. So if you’re feeling burnt out, then maybe your expectations get to change. Maybe you get to trust a little deeper, maybe you get to release some of that control, and just surrender to what is instead of trying to create something else. Maybe you get to create goals, but you can also ask yourself, why am I choosing this goal? And what kind of a life Do I have to have in order to achieve this goal? Is there something I have to sacrifice like my time or my energy? So just evaluating your expectations, your goals, why you’ve chosen them If they even align with you if they even resonate with you, and then creating some aligned goals, creating an aligned vision of how you want to feel, who you want to be. That’s where the real magic happens. The Magic doesn’t happen in your bank account, the magic happens in who you get to be in the world and what that person is like, how they feel on a regular basis. So setting those expectations for all of those things ahead, just gonna bring you so much more fulfillment. So to go back through what we talked about, we talked about burnout, what it is how you know, if you have burnout, and then we move through the stages, so the stages of awareness, why did you choose this? The stage of alignment, which is once you know why you chose it, then you can choose to follow your truth and define what your truth actually looks like. And then action actually taking action in the direction of your truth. moving in the direction alignment, taking a small step, just experimenting, seeing how it feels, and going from there. So if you’re feeling burned out right now and you’re listening to this, I hope that this was helpful for you. I know that that place of feeling burnt out can be one of the scariest places to be. Because it feels like you don’t even know what direction to move in. For me personally, when I was going through my burnout, I felt so utterly disconnected from myself. I don’t even know what I wanted. I couldn’t even tell you. And so if you’re feeling that way, right now, I just want you to know that I see you and I understand what you’re going through. I think that somewhere deep down inside of you, you know what the answer is? You know what truth feels like? You felt it before. And so trust when you feel those little nudges of truth. When you Pull it the thread and you start to pull a little more and more and more comes out. Trust that what you’re discovering is true. Trust that you have the answers. You just get to listen a little bit more.

Melyssa
Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you and I am wishing you the best on this beautiful journey. You’re on.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai